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[Shonai_Dweller]

So, Toady said in the recent podcast that adventurers should one day be able to take part in all the love and romance that npcs get up to.

We have poetry, we can dance, we can make quaint troll bone earrings, we'll soon be able to build our own love nests out in the woods. It's just a matter of Toady being inspired to tie it all together in a wildly complex, procedurally generated love machine. So, besides satisfying those weird players with gorlak fetishes, what fun can adventurer romance bring to the game? Let us inspire a fey mood into the Toady one.

Courting rituals seem a good place to start. History is full of peculiar things men and women have to do to woo the opposite sex (and their families). These could be randomly generated for each civilization modified by values, ethics, religion and whatever other fun cultural factors the myth-generator is going to add to the game.

These rituals would then provide fun mini-quests for adventurers wanting to satisfy their romance needs. You'd start off with a basic knowledge of your own civ of course, but those in search of a foreign lover would have to seek out a local teacher or read up at the local library on what the accepted behavior is for the civilization they're in. Adventurers would have to put up with jealous rivals and probably duels too (and assassination attempts depending on the situation). And lets not forget those girls and boys dazzled by our hero's elephant slaying prowess and trying to court them in return (and the bloody jealousy that may ensure).

Then into Fortress mode. Dwarves already fall in love and get married. Wouldn't it be fun if dwarves, in their spare time, were gathering presents for their spouses to be, holding meetings with future in-laws, desperately writing poetry at the library despite no aptitude, killing each other in jealous duels? What if a dwarf felt they had to prove themselves in battle and ignored the civilian alert to join the militia. Or grabbed a spear from the weapon pile and wandered off into the caverns alone?

It would add a fun, slightly unpredictable element to dwarves behavior. It would be very satisfying for players to catch a dwarf acting somewhat oddly and work out what's going on through a process of detective work. Sure, it's always frustrating when dwarves end up killing each other or trying to take on forgotten beasts by themselves but the range of the fortress guard could be expanded to counter this. Impose curfews, lock up dwarves trying to sneak into the caverns or steal weapons. All at the cost of a possible revolution of course (when factions are eventually introduced).

So, what are some of the world's weird and wonderful courting rituals that could be used to make up the world of dwarf fortress romance?

[IndigoFenix]

I don't think we'll be able to have proper courting systems until relationship values and ethics are more well-defined.  Right now, every sentient culture is monogamous and perfectly accepting of homosexuality, divorce and remarriage are impossible, and reproduction outside of marriage cannot occur.  This is clearly a placeholder system, as relationship ethics are one of the most complex defining features of real-world cultures, and this particular arrangement doesn't reflect anything in the real world.

One idea is to make relationships between individuals (both romantic and platonic) a raw-defined attribute of entities, similar to the way nobles are defined.  Members of relationships could have specific duties, and different acceptable means and rituals for creating those relationships.  Likewise, there could be more flexible ethic tags, where doing something with someone in a particular form of relationship has a certain cultural response.

A more detailed discussion on this topic can be found here.

Once that is done, the particular personalities of the individuals in question can affect how they will behave.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Oh sure, there's more infrastructure needed to make a fully fleshed out system. This isn't a suggestion for 'right now', it's an ideas thread for when Toady decided to take the plunge as he's  already said it's happening at some point.

You never know, we might come up with something he's forgotten which just has to be implemented in the myth-gen cycle to make any future adventurer sex possible.

[Dirst]

You never know, we might come up with something he's forgotten which just has to be implemented in the myth-gen cycle to make any future adventurer sex possible.

There's a historical reason that this may never ever make it into vanilla.

Adventurer relationships, sure.  Adventurer decedents by the fort-mode not-quite-spores system, sure.  But not what you said.

[Shonai_Dweller]

You never know, we might come up with something he's forgotten which just has to be implemented in the myth-gen cycle to make any future adventurer sex possible.

There's a historical reason that this may never ever make it into vanilla.

Adventurer relationships, sure.  Adventurer decedents by the fort-mode not-quite-spores system, sure.  But not what you said.

I was quoting Toady. Figured he'd know what's going to end up in vanilla or not. What are the historical reasons?

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Spoiler: runes to keep the Toad out lest he turn his holy gaze to this thread (click to show/hide)

Obok Meatgod? DON'T SEARCH HIS NAME. I'll SFW summarize: He was evil, and did evil stuff as an adventurer. Cool. Then he modded in appendages and "knew" a girl. In the biblical sense. Like the thing that males do to females when the female doesn't want it to happen. Toady nuked the thread, I think. And with good cause. It's right there in the forum rules. DON'T ANYBODY TELL ON ME THAT I TOLD.

Also, "I was quoting Toady." Buuuuuuuuurn.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Spoiler: runes to keep the Toad out lest he turn his holy gaze to this thread (click to show/hide)

Obok Meatgod? DON'T SEARCH HIS NAME. I'll SFW summarize: He was evil, and did evil stuff as an adventurer. Cool. Then he modded in appendages and "knew" a girl. In the biblical sense. Like the thing that males do to females when the female doesn't want it to happen. Toady nuked the thread, I think. And with good cause. It's right there in the forum rules. DON'T ANYBODY TELL ON ME THAT I TOLD.

Also, "I was quoting Toady." Buuuuuuuuurn.

The thread is about courting rituals. Suggesting a fun way to tackle the player lead relationships Toady mentioned the other day without grossing sensitive people out. I have no doubt any actual reproductive behaviour will be dealt with the same as in Ultima, a zoom out to the world map as the lovers 'pass time'.

Oh wait..didn't Ultima 7 have the crazy sex dance. Hmm...

[NW_Kohaku]

There is no "zoom out" for fortress mode, and Toady tends to keep things the same between modes, so I suspect not. 

Instead, I suspect you just do a "courting ritual", and then maybe if two people are near each other, there's a preggers flag raised.

"Hey, baby, want to blow this Legendary Dining Hall, and maybe join me for some courtship dancing?"

I just wish DF supported some directional sprites.  I'd like to see one of those SNES-era Final Fantasy dances where they spin in place and jump.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

You misunderstand, Kohaku. He means the "travel screen," which is the screen one sees when they (for instance) go to sleep, or compose, or write (maybe, I haven't personally tested that last one). This is already implemented behavior, so S_D just means "the game will lose focus in adv mode when courtship begins, maybe with a brief description of the nonsexual things that happen, a euphemism for the sexual thing that did happen (maybe), just as with when you compose a poem."

S_D, I was responding to Dirst, who spoke of a "historical reason" sex-related things might never be in vanilla. But that mostly has to do with the actual... act, not the courtship beforehand. (Armok knows [CENSORED] [CENSORED] didn't do any courtship before he [CENSORED].)

[Waparius]

Discussions of sex aside, courting rituals would be great. I like the "watch your dwarves go about their day" aspect of fortress, and having dwarves get crushes on each other and watching their attempts at romance would be great, and affairs would add to potential drama at the very least. (Oh crap, that dwarf's sneaking into the King's bedchamber. Is it a vampi - oh. They've left something. k-ENTER. This is a poem about the King Likat Stormhammer and Rigoth Axeblameless. The poem concerns the time Likat Stormhammer passed by Rigoth Axeblameless in 1432, and an extended metaphor about pumice. The poem contains 27 stanzas. The poem is amateurish but self-deprecating.)

Adding chivalric romance (depending on ethics) would be another great idea, even if it was more of a human thing and so only showed up in adventure mode - fighting for your man or lady's honour and carrying their favour to a tournament or whatever would be great. Even in dwarf mode it would be neat though.

[Shonai_Dweller]

There is no "zoom out" for fortress mode, and Toady tends to keep things the same between modes, so I suspect not. 

Instead, I suspect you just do a "courting ritual", and then maybe if two people are near each other, there's a preggers flag raised.

"Hey, baby, want to blow this Legendary Dining Hall, and maybe join me for some courtship dancing?"

I just wish DF supported some directional sprites.  I'd like to see one of those SNES-era Final Fantasy dances where they spin in place and jump.

Adventurer is the subject of the suggestion. You pass time when you write poetry, you pass time when you chop trees (upcoming), you should pass time when adventurer and lover need some private space.

Fortress bits in op were additional info for how this might carry over into fortress mode.

[NW_Kohaku]

Yes, but again, Toady prefers to keep as little divergence as possible between Fortress and Adventurer modes.  Hence, if something is in one, it will be in the other, and by that token, if it doesn't make sense in one, it won't be in either.

Gathering peacock feathers as tokens of love would make sense in either mode.  Duels brought about by jealous lovers make sense in either mode. Courtship dances make sense in either mode.

"Zoom outs" to avoid showing a "Woohoo" -in Sims terms- would be impractical to put in Fortress Mode, so it's not going to happen in Adventurer Mode, either.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Yes, but again, Toady prefers to keep as little divergence as possible between Fortress and Adventurer modes.  Hence, if something is in one, it will be in the other, and by that token, if it doesn't make sense in one, it won't be in either.

Gathering peacock feathers as tokens of love would make sense in either mode.  Duels brought about by jealous lovers make sense in either mode. Courtship dances make sense in either mode.

"Zoom outs" to avoid showing a "Woohoo" -in Sims terms- would be impractical to put in Fortress Mode, so it's not going to happen in Adventurer Mode, either.

Ok, I'm going to assume you've never played adventurer.

In adventurer, when you choose to do an activity that will take a bit of time during which the player has no control (wait, sleep, write, chop trees, build house, contemplate reproductive behavior with good friend) the game switches to the travel map. The one which doesn't exist yet in fortress because fortress doesn't have downtime. That happens by default, right now.

[NW_Kohaku]

Ok, I'm going to assume you've never played adventurer.

In adventurer, when you choose to do an activity that will take a bit of time during which the player has no control (wait, sleep, write, chop trees, build house, contemplate reproductive behavior with good friend) the game switches to the travel map. The one which doesn't exist yet in fortress because fortress doesn't have downtime. That happens by default, right now.

I have, actually, but that's beside the point.

Sleep goes to the travel screen in Adventure Mode because the game unloads a lot of detailed material and manages a smaller load to speed the game up.  Sleep in Fortress Mode doesn't because you manage more than just one dwarf who happens to be sleeping.

If there were anything in the game that would force the game to have to "not show you" a part of the fort, it would be impractical in Fortress Mode.  If there were something that required "a zoom out to the world map as the lovers 'pass time'," to avoid "grossing sensitive people out," as you put it, there would be no way to similarly avoid showing people in Fortress Mode outside of blocking regions of your fortress from view. (Not that there's much to 'see'...)

Simply put, I doubt Toady's putting in anything more sexual than dwarves going to sleep in adjoining beds.

[Shonai_Dweller]

There's nothing to see in fortress mode. There's no need to see anything in fortress mode. Nobody is asking for any more than the 'adjacent dwarf mating' that goes on in dwarf mode already. Not sure what your point is.
Back to thread please. Or just let it die. Whatever.